How To Survive review – undead again

Xbox Live Arcade sees the outbreak of yet another zombie apocalypse, but will you even care whether you survive this unlikely mix of Diablo and Dead Island?

If there are any gamers left that still don’t know how to survive a zombie apocalypse we don’t think they’re ever going to learn. To say that there have been a lot of zombie-themed games in the last few years is not so much an understatement as an accusation. From the biggest publishers to the smallest indie developers almost nobody has been able to resist adding zombies to their game; and who can blame them considering some of the terrible games that have sold extremely well just because of the presence of the undead. How To Survive better hope that’s still the case, as it has precious little else going for it.

We’re not entirely sure what little known developer EKO Software was trying to achieve with How To Survive but we suspect the concept started out as a zombie-themed version of Diablo. The game also reminds us a little of Konami’s old Lost In Blue shipwreck series, in that the game literally is just about surviving – with very little in the way of story elements. Although the voice-acting of the scant few characters is so atrocious you’ll feel even the little there is to be far too much.

Still, the basic idea is a relatively good one and although the combat makes it appear to be just a bog standard twin-stick shooter that isn’t really the focus. Instead you’re encouraged to attend to your character’s various Sims style needs, with little bars indicating how much sleep, food, and water they need. The immediately obvious problem with this is that it’s incredibly easy to fulfill all these wants, and a short wander away from camp will almost always provide you with whatever you want without any real inconvenience.

Your character is also constantly levelling up, but as they do they get more and perks that make the needs even more irrelevant. In fact the skill tree in general is shallow and useless, and there’s no real excitement or anticipation at being able to pick a new skill or unlock a new ability.

The crafting system is presumably meant to be the more complex mechanic but it somehow manages to be even more broken. Again one of the issues is that it’s so easy to find all the ingredients but combine that with the fact that the inventory pauses while you make something and the whole point of the system just evaporates.

In The Last Of Us or ZombiU you would desperately scramble to create a molotov cocktail or health pack, as you worried a zombie would lear up in front of you at any moment. In How To Survive though crafting has all the panicked intensity of a Blue Peter demonstration, since you have all the time in the world to make even the most complex items.

How To Survive (360) – combat is only a little more exciting

You never even seem to even run out of bullets, as they’re laying around everywhere as if they’re growing out of the ground. We know that game’s set in America, but How To Survive has all the verisimilitude of a a Super Mario game.

There are some novelty weapons, such as a DIY chainsaw, to try and work your way up towards building but most of the lower level rifles and shotguns work perfectly well and there’s very little impetuous to upgrade them, beyond just having something to do. That’s a search that goes without any satisfying conclusion though, as the game stumbles from one schoolboy error to another – from the weird ‘safehouses’ that are actually full of zombies and only attract more when you open the door to the fact that shining a light at a zombie at nigh completely freezes it – despite the game trying to convince you that night travel is extremely dangerous.

The only thing standing in the game’s favour is the co-op mode, which works both online and split screen. The combat is competent enough that there’s some fun to be had with a friend, but only for an hour or so, until you realise how empty and broken the rest of the game is. The only other positive is that it does have a reasonably strong sense of humour, which comes as a surprise given how empty and characterless the rest of the game is.

But an amusing Russian survival nut is nowhere near enough to save a game as badly designed and hopelessly confused as this. Playing it you can almost hear the developer muttering ‘at least it has zombies in it’. We just hope gamers aren’t doing the same and rewarding such tosh.

In Short: Surviving zombies is fairly easy but the real enemy here is tedium and a shopping list of design mistakes that makes this one of the worst zombie games of the year.

Pros: The combat is fairly satisfying and worth an hour or two’s diversion with a friend. The basic idea is fine and there’s a few good jokes.

Cons: The whole survival and crafting system is incredibly poorly thought out and adds almost nothing to the game. Strange, nonsensical design decisions, terrible graphics and voice-acting, and almost no story.